102 Commentary on 



Goppert's references of Taeniopteris thereto is gainst the 

 sense of Ettingsliauscr^ Morris, Bunbury, and all the other 

 highest living authorities on fossil plants. This paragraph 

 concludes with a statement that it is unphilosophical for me 

 to assign an epoch to the Australian coal without strati- 

 graphical evidence, and on the indication of plant genera, 

 " referable to more than the assumed epoch.^' To which I 

 reply that all the known stratigraphical evidence is in my 

 favor, and that the plant genera are all admitted as belonging 

 to the mesozoic epoch for which I contend ; but they do not 

 belong to the epoch for which Mr. Clarke contends, and that 

 seems just the difference between our positions — that all the 

 evidence, as far as it goes, is in my favor, but wherever of a 

 distinctive nature, is against my opponent. 



The next paragraph of Mr. Clarke's paper commences 

 with a notice of the reasons which induced Morris, 

 Strzelecki, and myself to form our opinions on the age of 

 the coal and underlying formations in New South Wales 

 and Tasmania, which, I consider, gives so imperfect a 

 view of the question, that I must state it differently : — About 

 twelve years ago I examined critically a very large collection 

 of fossils sent to England from these rocks, by Mr. Clarke, 

 and formed an opinion on the age of their formation, from 

 such data, different from that to which Mr. Clarke had 

 pledged himself before the necessary data for forming an 

 opinion had been examined. The reasons for my conclu- 

 sions I will briefly quote from the concluding part of a 

 paper I published on the subject eleven years ago, in the 

 Annals and Magazine of Natural History : — 



" In the above notice " (I state after describing the fossils) 

 ^' I have given eighteen species of fossil plant from the Mulu- 

 " bimba district, which is a portion of the great Newcastle 

 '' and Hawkesbury basin, twelve of which are considered new, 

 " Those plants belong to ten genera, two of which — Vertebraria 

 " said Zeugophyllites — are only known here and in the supposed 

 '^ oolitic coal-fields of India ; one genus (Gleichenites) I have 

 '' provisionally used for the Pecop/eri^ odontopteroides oi Morris, 

 "from the verbal characters given by Goppert for that genus, 

 "the species of which are found only in the palaeozoic coal; 

 " the plant, however, agrees much better with the species of the 

 " Keuper genus Heptacarpus than with those of the carboni- 

 " ferous Gleichenites ; and if we look rather to the plants them- 

 " selves than to the definitions given of the genera, I should 

 " certainly place it there. , All the other genera (with the 



